The invention relates to a railway vehicle comprising an access platform which extends transversely between two lateral faces, said access platform being adjacent to at least one passenger zone. The access platform comprises a plate which is movable vertically so as to allow persons with reduced mobility to gain access to the vehicle from railway platforms of different heights.
Such a vehicle is described in patent application DE19914965. The above-mentioned patent application describes a vehicle comprising a movable plate which has a position in which the movable plate and the floor of the passenger zones are coplanar. The movable plate is displaced vertically in order to allow persons with reduced mobility to gain access to the vehicle from a railway platform the height of which is different from the height of the floor of the passenger zones.
When the movable plate is displaced vertically, a step is created, in the vehicle, between the movable plate and the floor of the passenger areas adjacent to the movable plate.
Such a vehicle has the disadvantage of presenting a risk to passengers when a step is created between the movable plate and the floor of the adjacent passenger areas. In addition, owing to those steps, persons with reduced mobility who access the movable plate, from a railway platform, when it is in the access position do not have access to the rest of the vehicle; such persons must wait until the movable plate of the access platform is repositioned in the same plane as the floor of the passenger zones in order to gain access to the rest of the vehicle.
In addition, the vehicle of the prior art, in which the plate is movable vertically, has the disadvantage that it does not allow persons with reduced mobility to gain access to the vehicle from all railway platforms without assistance. In particular, the superelevation of the track in a station varies according to whether the track is curved or not. In addition, wear of the wheels and compression of the vehicle suspension causes lowering and tilting of the vehicle. On account of those parameters, the vertically movable plate has random positions with more or less great inclinations relative to the railway platform.
In addition, the distance from the vehicle to the railway platform in the transverse direction varies as a function of the concave or convex shape of the railway platform.
It is considered that, in order to allow persons with reduced mobility to gain access to the train without assistance, the space that is left between the access zone to the vehicle and the train must have horizontal and vertical components each less than 75 millimetres and preferably less than 50 millimetres. Such distances allow the small wheels of wheelchairs to pass safely without external assistance.
A vehicle of the prior art has the disadvantage that it does not always allow persons with reduced mobility to gain access to the vehicle from a railway platform without assistance because the space that is left between the movable plate and the railway platform can be important.
It is an aim of the invention to propose a vehicle which ensures that persons with reduced mobility have good access to a passenger area from an access platform.
It is another aim of the invention to propose a vehicle which ensures that persons with reduced mobility have independent access to a passenger area from a railway platform.